The New York City public advocate, the City Council speaker and other elected officials called on the Police Department on Wednesday to fix inequities in how it deploys investigative resources in poor, predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

Elected leaders were also working on measures seeking information from the department about how it assigns detectives and about the precinct-by-precinct rate at which it solves violent crimes. That would represent a sharp break from years of secrecy around how the department investigates serious crime in different parts of New York.

The calls for transparency followed the publication of an article last weekend in The New York Times that analyzed confidential deployment data and found that precinct detective squads and homicide squads in parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens were sharply understaffed compared with those in Manhattan.

Precinct detectives in the Bronx, the borough with the highest violent crime rate, carried an average of 20 more violent felonies last year than detectives in Brooklyn and Queens, and 30 more than detectives in Manhattan and Staten Island. Overall violent crime in the Bronx — murders, rapes, robberies and felony assaults — rose last year through late December, even as the city on Wednesday touted citywide declines in crime.

The 40th Precinct in the South Bronx, where overall crime climbed by 13 percent last year, had the city’s highest murder rate through November, but the fewest detectives per violent crime. The precinct covers some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, including Mott Haven and Melrose, and the population is largely black and Hispanic.

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New York’s public advocate, Letitia James, speaking to reporters in the Bronx last month. She has sent a letter to the police commissioner saying that “we must work harder to address the disparities that exist across neighborhoods and that predominantly affect low-income New Yorkers of color.”CreditGregg Vigliotti for The New York Times

The public advocate, Letitia James, sent a letter to the police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, arguing that the analysis showed “a need to re-evaluate the way the N.Y.P.D. deploys resources within the Detective Bureau,” and asking him to report to her office about plans to reallocate detectives.

Ms. James thanked the Police Department for helping drive down crime in many neighborhoods. “But,” she wrote, “we must work harder to address the disparities that exist across neighborhoods and that predominantly affect low-income New Yorkers of color.”

In an interview, Ms. James criticized the department’s “Manhattan-centric” view. “We can’t continue to be a progressive city if we continue to shortchange districts and precincts where they are under-resourced, and where the common factor is living below the poverty level,” she said.

The heavy caseloads that some detectives carry outside Manhattan — sometimes more than double the department’s standard — remained shrouded to many city elected leaders even as they voted last year to substantially expand the department’s ranks. The City Council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, whose district covers part of the 40th Precinct, questioned whether that increase was being felt in every neighborhood.

“The City Council increased N.Y.P.D. head count by nearly 1,300 officers to help ensure the N.Y.P.D. has the resources it needs to best serve all New Yorkers,” she said in a statement. “This report raises serious concerns about equitable staffing and how police resources are allocated throughout the five boroughs. The Council will be reviewing the staffing levels and methodology to ensure that these resources are equitably distributed.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio, speaking at a news conference on Wednesday to discuss 2016 crime totals, dismissed the notion of a disparity in policing resources. “I don’t think we share that interpretation of the statistics,” he said. “Those resources are constantly being moved around as needed.”

Precinct detective squads have contracted in some neighborhoods, like the South Bronx, where crime has persisted, even as the squads have expanded in some neighborhoods where crime has plummeted, city staffing data shows.

Mr. O’Neill said the department would add investigators to the Detective Bureau after it staffed its neighborhood policing initiative, which is the centerpiece of the administration’s policing agenda. He said boroughwide investigative units, like homicide squads, supported precinct detectives.

The Bronx homicide squad had one detective for every four murders last year, while Lower Manhattan’s squad had more detectives than it did murders.

Councilwoman Vanessa L. Gibson, a Bronx Democrat who oversees policing as the chairwoman of the Committee on Public Safety, said she would seek more information as part of the budgeting process.

“When you look at distribution of resources across the city, the Bronx and Brooklyn should always get more than average, because it’s necessary for us,” she said.

Councilman Rory I. Lancman, the chairman of the Committee on Courts and Legal Services, said the article in The Times had prompted him to begin drafting legislation that would require the police to report the rate at which they solve serious crimes in each precinct. The police have not reported precinct-by-precinct clearance rates since 2001.

“Race plays a factor in our criminal justice system at every level,” said Mr. Lancman, a Queens Democrat. “If you look at the communities that experience overpolicing, the communities that experience under-investigating and lower clearance rates, those are almost all communities of color.”

He added: “It has to be a very high priority of the department to solve crimes that have occurred, both because it completely destroys the faith that communities have in the Police Department’s ability to protect them, and also allows people who have committed one crime to continue committing others.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Fix Inequities in Deployment of Investigators, Officials Urge Police Department. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe